Bonus trivia: Did you know The Neverending Story was originally written in German? It wasn't translated into English until 1983, and the movie was then released in '84. As a kid I didn't realize there even was a book - I discovered and read it sometime in my twenties. (The movie follows the original storyalmost exactly - a nice surprise!)

I LOVE the Neverending Story! And that Lord of the Rings cake is gorgeous with the feather. I love kids books... haven't heard of the Giving Tree before, so I'll have to get on to that. Great feature! :)xo

The Neverending story is much, much longer as a book. The film (and I am only counting the first, because everything after that was a travesty) ends after Bastian gets to Phantasia- the whole story after that, about two thirds of the book, is cut. So I would strongly advise everybody to read the book, because while the movie was true to the part that it told, there is much, much more to the story (also, read Momo, also written by Michael Ende)

Also, Michael Ende hated hated HATED the movie version of The Neverending Story because not only did it end halfway, it tacked on an ending which he did not approve of: Bastian taking revenge against his tormentors.

Love the 'Neverending Story' cake. One of my favourite movies. Too bad I wasn't aware of the book until long after I'd seen the movie. So, it didn't come out in English until 1983? Wow! Did Michael Ende write anything else, btw?

Speaking as a total Harry Potter junkie, those HP book cakes are *sa-weeeeeeet*! I am deeply impressed with the detail on all of these cakes, and am proud that I've read all except the Tinker Bell book (not sure what that's about, but still totally adorable) Sunday Sweets make everything better, thanks Jenn!

Those are all awesome cakes. And although I can appreciate the craftsmanship on The Neverending Story cake, I never liked that movie. In fact, I was downright terrified by the big ugly flying dog...I used to have nightmares. *shudder*

100% agree with Rob on the Never Ending Story... the second half really does mess with your head. I think it's saying that although dreaming is important, doing too much of it will make you crazy. Which I suppose is true.

Giving Tree, OTOH... at the age of 6 I learned the word "sadomasochistic," though I didn't find out what my mom meant by that until I was much older. I agree with her! Still a beautiful cake.

The german version of The Neverending Story, Die Unendliche Gechichte is much better than the english version. The translation just isn't very good. Even the title is translated wrong. I'd translate is as The Unending Story or The Endless Story, not The Neverending Story.

Oh my...that Giving Tree cake is wonderful. I remember the first time I read that book to my daughters I sobbed all the way through it. They thought I was crazy. I loved it. Beautiful. All the cakes were, of course, but that one was just beautiful. I also love "Oh the Places You'll Go"!

One thing I really like about these cakes (other than their general awesomeness, that is) is that they aren't all for children. I love that young adults still want cakes of their favorite books, and not just Twilight. That's the power of great books.

WV: gessol. Gessol have to get some of these books and start re-reading!

The Never-Ending Story gave me and my husband nightmares as children, especially that flying worm-dog thing. I think it didn't help that we both ended up watching the movie while sick with the flu. Nothing like crazy- fever dreams spawned by a children's movie! Neither of us can/will watch that movie (and it's sequel) even as adults. Maybe I'll try reading the book...

The Never-Ending Story gave me and my husband nightmares as children, especially that flying worm-dog thing. I think it didn't help that we both ended up watching the movie while sick with the flu. Nothing like crazy- fever dreams spawned by a children's movie! Neither of us can/will watch that movie (and it's sequel) even as adults. Maybe I'll try working up the nerve to read the book...

to LB:Ende is a rather well-like author of childrens books here. I already recommended Momo, which has some philosophical themes just like The Neverending Story (the former is a story about Time and how it gets stolen while the latter is a story about phatansy and how we determine who we really are).Less philosophycal and more for children is Jim Button and Luke the Engine driver and Jim Button and the Wild 13. It's about an orphaned boy and his best friend having all kinds of adventures, saving a princess from a dragon and fighting piraes.The last of his childrens books, and also less philosophical, is The Night of Wishes: Or the Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion. It's about a cat and a raven trying to thwart their master's (a wizard and a witch) plans of, basically, destroying the world. It is perhaps the funniest of his books and greatly recommended.

I have to say that The Never Ending Story cake really got to me. I saw the movie on our first VCR when we first got it. I was pregnant with my son at the time. It was one of the first tapes we ever rented, in fact. We must have watched that movie three or four times that weekend. I completely lost my appetite for violent or gory movies when I was pregnant, it just didn't seem like violence and gore were conducive to creating a life, ya know? My son has just celebrated his 25th birthday, but I've never found any interest in violence and gore in entertainment again. I don't think I'm missing much.

Also, a few years later we rescued a white shitzu who looked EXACTLY like Falcor, so that's what we named him!

LOVE The Neverending Story cake. Falcor is so cute!Speaking of the movie, did you know that Noah Hathaway almost died in the scene in the Swamp of Sadness? When Artax is sinking, he's actually on an elevator. Noah got caught in the vacuum and was pulled under. When they managed to fish him out he was unconscious. Also, when fighting the Gmork he almost lost an eye.And the second movie follows the second half of the book pretty well.

I mean, come on, the boy takes and takes until the once graceful tree is now a stump. And he never even thinks about the tree unless he needs something. I sure hope my kids don't grow up to be that selfish.

However, it is a classic children's book, and it is stinkin' cute, and it is my favorite cake of the day, so I suppose I'll forgive you for including it. ;)

Love these. Real apples on the Giving Tree cake, right? There needs to be more book cakes, if you ask me. Anyone done an e-reader cake yet?

About Neverending Story--did you know The Neverending Story is a German-made film? I never knew that until recently. There's some good behind-the-scenes stuff on YouTube, but for a laugh check out the "alternate ending" by Kusper. Adult-oriented, just so you're warned.

The Giving Tree makes me emotional. That cake is such a loving tribute. Made my day. Thanks. "Courdoroy" by Don Freeman was my favorite book as a child, and if somebody could come up with something, I'd probably cry.

The movie was interesting...I found it very different from the book in some respects - for one thing, was anyone else convinced that the name that Bastian gives the Childlike Empress at the end was his mother's name? I was really surprised when I read the book and found out what name he actually gives her. Also I agree with Rob about how the second half screws with your head...but it's amazing.

I adore every one of these cakes. The Giving Tree was a bittersweet memory, where as everything else was just fin... though I admit I'm bad; I've never been able to read through LotR... I loved the Hobbit and the movies though? (Three pages to describe a field put me to sleep, and I was ashamed of it).

The "Oh the Places You'll Go" book is actually even more appropriate at this time of year. There is a tradition with some parents to give their kids this book at graduation. Both to symbolize their childhood days... and their future hereafter. So even more of a sweet on this very sweet Sunday.

wv: sinnic - A sinful cynic : You'd have to be a sinnic to hate any of these cakes!

Shirley said... "...I suppose it would be bad minded of me to wonder why the Giving Tree has apples and oak leaves though?" =========Wow, you're right~~ good catch!Maybe this is a case where the apple DID fall far from the tree?(Or, those are actually red, cap-less acorns?)=^~.-^=

Not only *is* there a Neverending Story book, but the hardcover edition is printed in two colors: red when Bastian is in our world, reading, and green for the story itself, even after Bastian becomes part of it. I'm looking at my copy now--I hunted high and low for it after reading the library's copy as a teen and wanting one in red and green. They were hard to find. --Lauren

These are great cakes...The Neverending Story one is probably my favorite.

I was in college, I think, before I found out that the movie was based on a book. I found said book at a yard sale last year and read it in a matter of two days. I was pleasantly surprised to see how closely the movie followed the book...but only the first half. I would love to see someone tackle the second half on film.

Ooooo, how much do I want a cupcake right now? The NeverEnding Story cake is definitely sweet. I was a geek who always ran to the library to read the book right after seeing the movie, so I was very interested to discover the discrepancies. Am I a geek to confess that the theme song was one of my favorite songs as a little kid?

Wow, beautiful cakes!I recently finished a practical training as a teacher in my old elementary school here in Germany. When I was in the library, I pulled The Neverending Story from the shelf and found my name on the card - four times. What a blast from the past!I must be the only person here who has read the book multiple times, but never saw the movie...

I am 40 and I never read Lord of the Rings in high school. We never read Lord of the Flies in high school either. In fact, I've still never read those two books. They just don't look interesting to me. Now Harry Potter, well, I've read that series SEVERAL times over and each time I find something new - some new detail or bit of foreshadowing that I never caught before. That series is brilliantly written.

the neverending story cake is my FAVORITE of all of these! how awesome! BUT...it bugs me that there isn't an orin (spelling?) on the front...don't you think it should be there?? my 8yo just saw it and said she totally wants a neverending story party for her next bday now :) yay!

*sniffles* I love the giving tree! And my geek ex husband gave me my first copy of both Neverending Story and the Princess Bride so he was good for something... I wish that cake had an auryn on it though..

That said, I dislike the "Neverending Story" films, probably because the first I saw is one of the sequels and they do not have anything at all whatsoever to do with the book. (I´m not even complaining that Atréju isn´t green!, but I was disappointed.)

I read the book (in German) right after "Momo"(another book by the same author and also very very much recommended) and love it still, it´s wonderful wonderful wonderful.

Love the cakes, but I had to do a double take at the comment below the Never Ending Story one - the movie follows the book closely? I have known this book since I was rather small. My mom started reading it to my brother and myself when we were rather small ( we also owned the cassettes which I still have), so it holds a special place in my heart.. and I was really disappointed in the movie when I first saw it at the age of ten, I guess (a few years after it came out). My favourite character Fuchur (or Falkor) looked and more importantly *sounded* nothing like I imagined him from the description in the book. His voice is described as sounding like a big bronze bell tolling.Plus, as many here posted, the movie covers about a third of the book and doesn´t do all that great at capturing the soul of it (like they managed with LOTR, IMO)...BTW-most of Michael Ende´s books are really great, Momo is another really good one. The movie to that one is also well done. :o)

I beg to differ that the movie of The Neverending Story follows the book well. The author of the book, Michael Ende, collaborated on writing the script but was so disgusted with the deviations from the book that he had his name removed from the screenwriting credits. That being said, I adore both the movie and the book. But if you want a great book/movie combo, go for The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Hmmm... maybe I should see if I could get someone to immortalize that in cake for me...

That Neverending Story cake is gorgeous. It's also one of my favorite books, so few books have such rich characters. The movie is fairly accurate, all things considered, except that it's only the first half of the book! Thanks for pointing people towards one of the most underrated stories of all time; this book should really be ten times as popular as it is!

i'm about to say something about Michael Ende's classic 'The Neverending Story'.I read it in Hungarian, totally enjoyed it, with all its deep layers...i loved it to pieces.we kept reading it to our children as a bedtime story.we anticipated the movie - and only find it having the original meaning ruined by the movie. a movie that focuses on specific effects, gloomy characters, and next to nothing about the psychology so richly described by M. Ende.His other books (Momo for example) are also of great value.

I'm really surprised how many people don't know there is a second Neverending Story movie! Its called The Neverending Story 2 :-) Its not as good as the first one, but it does follow the second half of the book pretty well. The original though, probably my second favorite childhood movie, after The Princess Bride.

The second movie does not follow the book accurately. It turns it into a fight between the bad queen and the good guys, which is so, so not the point of the book, even if the character is rather important. The book is full of philosophy and is, at its heart, the story of Bastian finding himself. The movie tries to turn it into a predictable fight between good and evil, when one of the most important aspects of the book is the fact that such distinctions rarely exist. Add the fact that it is also a bad movie in itself, and there is good reason to ignore it.

I disagree about the movie following the book almost exactly. That's true if you leave out half of the story. I couldn't believe it when the book went way beyond where the movie ended. The movie left out a massive amount of the book.

I love the Harry Potter and The Where The Wild Things Are cakes. Two of my favorite childhood books. And the Giving Tree! Although I'd feel bad biting into something as sacred as the Giving Tree stump!

WOW! I'm an elementary school librarian so I was thrilled to see these AWESOME cakes. (I was especially pleased that they weren't "wrecks.") They would be welcome in my library anytime! :)I have many high-reading 5th graders who are avid readers/fans of The Lord of the Rings series so I think it fits right in with the others. It's certainly in our school's collection.The Seuss cake is impressive because even the font style is correct!

"They're also for all of us out there who like to complain when a movie ruins the book." Good to know there is at least one other person with this mind-set. People who know me roll their eyes when i say 'well, the book was so much better'. Julie and Julia was the most recent disappointment. WV: mushemba - when a screen writer mushes, embellishes and axes critical parts of a book

If I am not mistaken, my principal from high school read several lines out of "oh the places you'll go" in our graduation. I only learned about this later because I wasn't paying attention (I was bored out of my skull).

I have a book recommendation for you: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. It's hilarious, it's literary, it's a mystery/crime novel, it's wonderful! I think you'd love it, if you haven't already read all of his stuff. I don't know if you've read it because I bet there are no Eyre Affair cakes out there, so you haven't commented on the book ever!

Lovely cakes, but it's left me wondering how it is I haven't read almost any of those titles! Never heard of the Giving Tree before CW, rebelled and didn't read LoTR (soooo many of my friends did), many Dr Seuss titles didn't make it to Australia in the 70s (and by the time we moved to Canada I was too old), and some of the others came out too late for me. Which leaves only Harry Potter... I'm one of those 30-somethings who got thoroughly hooked :)

About The Neverending Story - my ALL TIME favorite movie since I was five (now 28). The movie doesn't follow the book exactly, though. In fact, the movie is a small snippet of the book. Like you, though, I didn't know of the book till many many years later, long after I was already in love with the movie (the first movie, at least). When I was 16 I got to visit Germany and actually rode Falkor. 'Twas a dream come true ^_^ I seriously want that TNES cake :D

I never read "The Giving Tree" as a child, nor was it read to me; I first encountered it in a college course on Childrens' Literature. I may have been overly influenced by the professor's take on the book, but every time I have read it, I can only see what he pointed out: that the boy only takes and takes from the tree, and even once he has taken the tree trunk, arguably the essence of the tree, he comes back and expects yet more. Far from teaching positive qualities, all I can see it teaching is selfishness and lack of consideration. In this day and age of self-centeredness, this seems to me to be the last book we would want to expose kids to. They are already self-centered enough; do they really need a children's book that sanctions it, and even, arguably, endorses it?

To all the people who are questioning LOTR in school--in seventh grade my whole class read the Hobbit and then I went on to read 2 1/2 of the LOTR trilogy. I didn't really like the books, but my teacher LOVED them and I loved my teacher, so I read them to please her.

Awesome cakes. Although I have to say your memory of The Neverending Story (either the book or the movie) varies from mine. I used to love the movie too, until I read the book and realized that the movie only includes the first third of the book and actually breaks rules from the book that are fairly important. That being said, I am now demanding someone make me a Neverending Story cake.

Oh, and as a fun note the original German publication was done in red and green font. One for the "real" world and one for the world of Fantastica. Man, now I want to read this again.

As to the Neverending story, We had one of the first English copies in my HS and I fell in love with the story, I was very disappointed in the move... close, but there were plenty of things they could have added in at little to no cost to them, He also wrote a book called Moma, another good read.

Well, I for one read The Lord of the Rings when I was ten. My mom recommended it because she thought I'd like it. She didn't realize it would become my favorite book and take over my mind for several years. I blame Tolkien for my abiding interest in linguistics, among other things. And I remember having a hard time convincing my high school classmates that it was not a children's book. (This was almost a decade before the Peter Jackson movies.)

I also thought the Neverending Story cake should have an AURYN (spelled with all caps) on it. And I wonder if there will be a remake of that movie one day that will encompass the whole story. That could be really cool.

Finally, someone mentioned Julie & Julia, which started as a blog, and this made me think: I would totally go to see the Cake Wrecks movie! And if they ruined it, it would be a wrecursive wreck!

It took me awhile to get to the Sunday sweets this week - it's Wednesday. oops.

Love these. One of my all time favorite books is the Never-ending Story. Which just made me wonder, did you read it in paperback or the first/only hardback (English translation) edition, which was printed in RED and GREEN inks and completely enhanced an already charming book? My mom read it to me from the hardback. When I was in my 20s I decided to buy it, but had to search around for it and ended up with a rare pre-release copy.

By the way, I know this is a bit late, but I just want to point out that my copy of The Neverending Story is a trade paperback and is printed in the red and green inks, so it isn't only the hardcover editions that have that feature. And I got it here in the USA, sometime in the last decade.

I read The Neverending Story when I was very little, long before I saw the movie. It's still one of my favorite books. When I finally did when I was 10, I didn't like it one bit. So while the movie is a classic childhood memory for most, I tend to get a bitter taste in my mouth when I hear people talk about it, even though when I rewatched the movie a few years ago I rather enjoyed it. It's surprisingly true to the book; as much as a film version could be, at least.

The movie of "The Neverending Story" follows the book almost exactly -- UNTIL the finale, which in the book is a touching reunion between father and son, connected through the love of literature. In the horrible movie, the father is forgotten and the ending is a shallow revenge fantasy. I hated what they did to a great book. (My hardback copy has the "real world" in green ink and the fantasy world in red ink.)

The Never-Ending Story was filmed quite close to me here in Germany at the Bavarian Film Institute. We saw parts of the sets where it was done, and my son got to ride on Falcor. It was awesome, esp. when they did a wee film of him riding against a green screen. At the time, he had NO idea why it was so neat, just kept smiling and waving...hehhe.

Hi. I thought you might enjoy this other book-themed cake: http://www.cakedreams.us/images/bg_images/gallery_one_tier/11.jpgIt's just the top of the cake, not the whole cake. But you can see that the cake is entitled "Livre Las Vegas," and was created to celebrate the opening of a rare book store in Vegas. That's why the books that the showgirl is standing on are antiquarian leather and gilt books.

I was just recently introduced to this site, and I have not laughed so hard in years. Thank you so much for both the humor and wit of the wrecks, as well as the amazement at the sweets.

As for the kid-lit book cakes - just, wow! I admit to being one of the geeks that read LOTR in 6th grade. We weren't doing much the last week of school anyway, so I read all 3 books in about 4 1/2 days, including nearly a whole day off to get TT at the library. I would have loved that cake any time!

I just read through all of the comments, and while a number of people mentioned the discrepancies between the Neverending Story movie and book, no one commented on the fact that one of the primary themes of the book is that if people stop reading the characters and places in books die. The Neverending Story was possibly my favorite book growing up (I've read it countless times) and that was the theme that spoke to me the most. When I learned that they made a movie out of this particular book I was disgusted. I generally dislike movies based on books (because you can never get in all the detail, and it takes out imagination), but making the Neverending Story into a movie was a travesty of unrivaled proportions, proven I feel, by the number of people who commented that they didn't even know it was a book! So sad. I hope everyone goes out and reads the book.

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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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